Editing Approved Literature (section)

==Science Fiction==
*'''''Douglas Adams - The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy''''': One of the funniest works of science fiction ever made, although you could count it as the first. The precursor to all comedy stories about everyday people having to deal with the absurdly massive and meaningless universe around them. Grab your towel, make a fresh cuppa, and make sure you've got enough tape to keep your sides from splitting too much.

*'''''K.A. Applegate - Animorphs''''': Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Furfag Edition. A group of teens with attitude accidentally gain power of "Morphing" into various creatures of their choice and then get almost instantly tangled into guerilla warfare against an alien invasion. If you're an Anglophone furfag, there is a good chance this series has something to do with it. On the flip-side, the series is fucking ''dark'', playing up the situation for as much horror and misery as it can get away with... which is pretty impressive for something that can be summed up as "sci-fi [[Dungeons & Dragons]] all-[[druid]] party vs. body-snatching alien invasion for twelve year olds!" It also had a 1990's Nickelodeon live-action show. The books are also a great source of alien creatures, like the ever-hungry Taxxon centipedes whose design and schtick of endless hunger were stolen for the hostile xenos of the videogame Starsand.

*'''''[[Isaac Asimov]] - Foundation Series''''': The seminal space opera modelled roughly on the decline of the Roman Empire, includes everything from [[Imperium of Man|primitives and feudalists]] too [[Adeptus Mechanicus|ignorant to work what technology remains]] to [[Rogue Trader|Space Capitalists]] looking to exploit said primitives with [[Cyberpunk|subscription plans]]. It follows the rise of a new civilization from this empire's decline and eventual death, as well as the danger of relying too much on [[Just as Planned|great plans]] laid centuries before by [[God-Emperor|a single man]]. Focus more on the political transformation than the science behind it. The very model of Empire-In-Decline SF, and very useful material for GMs looking to explore settings ''outside'' the usual space-empire backdrop.

*'''''Iain M. Banks - [[The Culture]] Series''''': A series about a perfect, utopian spacefaring society and all its many problems. Some of the grandest-scale worldbuilding in science fiction, and full of clever ethical and political musing.

*'''''David Brin - The Postman''''': First novel to present post apocalypse not from the point of view of badass heroes or insane raiders, but random villagers and such. Great world building for a very small world. Has an infamous film "adaptation", sharing only title.

*'''''[[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] - the Barsoom Series-aka Mars Chronicles and the Pellucidar Series''''': Iconic, manly, and fuckin' A! This guy also did Tarzan and a whole slew of other works that would go on to inspire other manly stories, chiefly Conan the Barbarian and most of the knockoffs thereof.

*'''''Glen Cook - The Dragon Never Sleeps''''': Basically an EVE Online novel written decades before EVE Online. Was supposed to be a trilogy but the publisher wouldn't okay sequels so it gets rushed at the end. Not as iconic as The Black Company, but this one has LATE ROMAN EMPIRE IN SPAAAAAAACCCCEEEE!!!!!!!

*'''''James S. A. Corey - The Expanse series''''' Bar the intentionally fantastical elements it provides <s>a fairly grounded</s> muh gritty realism version of near future space exploration. Some fantastic characters and stories, but as the main plot goes, slowly turns into a generic space opera-western mix. Got a TV show adaptation that ignores all the good stuff, while taking the worst aspects of the books and runs wild with them.

*'''''Arthur Conan Doyle - The Lost World''''': The ''other'' thing Doyle is know after Sherlock Holmes. An archetypical novel about bold scientists, ambitious hunter and intrepid reporter going into a distant plateau somewhere in the Amazons, where they have all sorts of misadventures involving species that should be extinct millions years ago - and most notably living dinosaurs. There is a good chance you "know" this book, along with all its plot bits, without ever actually reading it, that's how big and influential it is.

*'''''Harlan Ellison - I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream''''': The last five humans alive are being held deep in an underground complex, where they are perpetually tortured by AM, the sadistic AI that wiped out the rest of humanity, with no hope of escape. The most creepy thing in this book is that the author thought it was ''optimistic''. If he someday went to write something pessimistic, the universe would implode from the sheer grimdark overdose. The sequel of it, in form of a point-and-click adventure game, is also very much approved.
*'''''E. E. "Doc" Smith - Galactic Patrol, Grey Lensman et al.''''': Starts as ''Gang Busters'' in space and ends with World War II in space, despite being written while the war was still being fought. But all of them are just pawns in the eons-long war between the psychic alien brain gods of Arisia and their opposites, the [[Cthulhu Mythos|shoggoth-like]] Eddorians. The ''original'' space opera and the source of every "super space cops with tremendous authority granted to them by a supernatural power" in fiction, from Green Lanterns to the Jedi. Despite the incredible levels of [[awesome]] involved it frankly reeks of being written for SF magazines by an author who was getting paid by the word, with lots of "tell, don't show" and mindless escalation to try to keep the reader's attention. Still approved, because it's a concentrated dose of space opera cliches right as they were being codified. Also great as a worked example of why reactionless FTL breaks settings; it leads to planets getting tossed around like cruise missiles.

*'''''Philip Jose Farmer - The Riverworld Series''''': A group of dead people from many different time periods, including Richard Burton, Hermann Göring, Tullus of Rome and Mark Twain wake up on an alien planet and have to survive. Very fun read with interesting character interactions.
*'''''Alan Dean Foster - Humanx Commonwealth''''': Series of novels set within the titular [[Star Trek|Federation-esque]] interstellar government, originally formed between humans and their primary allies, the insect-like thranx. The main series, by and large, focuses on empath Philip Linx, aka "Flinx" and his pet minidrag Pip, who first set out to find Flinx's biological parents and get caught up in having to save the universe from the galaxy-devouring Great Evil. Besides Flinx's books, there are numerous standalone novels and two trilogies, one of which is a prequel focusing on the Commonwealth's founding. Good resource for unusual aliens. Also got an adaptation for GURPS, now out of print. Another RPG adaptation from Battlefield Press is due out in 2023.

*'''''[[Robert Heinlein| Robert A. Heinlein]] - [[Starship Troopers]]''''': Where Space Marines and Tyranids came from. The novel carries a vastly different message and tone than the campy movie based on it. [[Roboute Guilliman]] keeps a copy in his duffel.

*'''''Frank Herbert - [[Dune]] & its earlier sequels''''': World-building, politics, super-humans - it's one helluva party. The spice must flow! There are no books after Chapterhouse: Dune. We shouldn't have to tell you that all the parts of [[Warhammer 40000|40k]] that weren't stolen from 2000 AD or Warhammer Fantasy were stolen from these books.

*'''''Aldous Huxley - Brave New World''''': Take 1984, and do the total opposite the way people are controlled (rather than punishing bad behavior, it's rewarding "good" behavior) mixed with a Tau-esque genetically enforced caste system and conditioning to make people embrace their servitude.

*'''''William Gibson - The Sprawl Trilogy''''':  Neuromancer is the start of [[Cyberpunk]]. Gibsons short stories and the sprawl trilogy basically invented the whole genre and had a massive influence on internet culture before the internet even existed properly.  The Matrix movies ripped off huge chunks of the sprawl trilogy, and Gisbon invented most of the basic internet slang (Cyberspace and Netsurfing in particular). All cyberpunk RPGs and Vidyas want to be Neuromancer.
**'''''William Gibson - The Difference Engine''''': A thought exercise that went along the lines of "what if cyberpunk, but in a different time period?". Henceforth - steampunk. Don't panic yet - this one comes with the actual '''punk''' in it, rather than cogs and brass glued to things. For what it's worth, it's just a reskinned Neuromancer and a great example of why steampunk is an aesthetic, rather than a genre.

*'''''Wolfgang Jeschke - The last day of Creation''''': Having figured out that time travel is not only feasible, but already was done by someone, the US government decides to send supplies and engineers to the past with a sinister goal - siphon the oil from the Middle East and pump it to more "friendly" territories, with utter disregard if the plan is even feasible. A whole lot of things go wrong, and the fact people from countless alternative futures keep barging into the past is the least of the problems. Was "adopted" into approved vidya, Original War.

*'''''Stanisław Lem - Tales Of Pirx the Pilot''''': Collection of short stories documenting gradual progress of humanity in space exploration and AI development. Nice deconstruction of all the shitty elements from space opera, ''before there even was space opera''.

*'''''Walter M. Miller, Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz''''' In the grim darkness of the far future there is only Catholicism. Source of all that is [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] that wasn't blatantly stolen from Dune.
*'''''Larry Niven - Known Space''''': Many, many stories are set in this future setting; start with ''Ringworld'' and read his other shorts if you like it, as long as you read "Safe at Any Speed" last. Features exploring big dumb objects, several alien races living and dead, and deep lore from the far past. There's a war with [[Furry|furries]] called Kzinti in the setting's past, Niven has let other authors write. The Ringworld itself is a Dyson sphere on the cheap: instead of wrapping the entire sun, "only" the inhabitable orbital ring is built up, above the stellar rotational equator. It's also inherently unstable, which led to MIT grads heckling Niven at Worldcon 1971.

*'''''George Orwell - [[1984|Nineteen Eighty-Four]], Animal Farm''''': WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH! FOUR LEGS GOOD! TWO LEGS <s>BAD</s> BETTER!
** 1984 is the blueprint for every totalitarian government written after it that doesn't just recycle Nazi Germany. Written based on Orwell's experiences during WWII and the Spanish Civil War, it's a masterclass in grimdark and how to fuck with your players' heads. Also increasingly convergent with real life; if you want to know why /pol/ keeps getting things right against all sense, start here.
** Animal Farm is just a retelling (with talking animals, hence the subtitle "A Fable") of the Russian Revolution and Stalin's ultimate rise to power. An antidote to the type of fuckhead who blames capitalism for all of life's problems and might unironically believe that "real communism has never been tried."

*'''''John Scalzi - Old Man's War''''': In the corporate far future, there is only galactic war. A series of space opera novels that tricks you first into thinking it's another no-nonsense Starship Troopers rip-off, only to gradually start to take the piss out of the entire concept of gung-ho human military trying to conquer a galaxy for the sake of the bottom line of the mega-corp fielding them. Manages to be full of squad-level adventures and never, ever takes itself seriously.

*'''''Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy''''': /x/ the book, and a cult classic in every sense of the word. Once you get used to the massively cheesy tone, what you'll find here is an intelligent and fun series of books that are both a parody and a send up to: 70s counterculture, Western esotericism, political and religious dogma, numerology, and conspiracy theories.

*'''''Robert Sheckley - short stories''''': once dubbed the clown prince of sci-fi, recommended by Douglas Adams.

*'''''John Steakley - Armor''''': Future soldiers in powered armour fighting against insectoid, always hungry aliens and suffering from mental trauma and PTSD... man, that does sound familiar.

*'''''Charles Stross - Missile Gap''''': While Stross is most famous for his Laundry Files (basically collection of [[Delta Green]] shorts, which are all worth reading too, and eventually even got their own TTRPG), Missile Gap is just mind-numbing novella about entire Earth being transported on an Alderson disk... or maybe a snapshot of Earth... or maybe ''both''. All right in the middle of the Cuban Crisis. Think "Primer" meet Tom Clancy techno-thriller.

*'''''Jules Verne - Journey to the Center of the Earth''''': While Verne penned a trainload of sci-fi and adventure novels, this one is the closest to a TTRPG format: a small expedition of daring adventurers goes under the surface of the Earth, to prove the Hollow Earth theory, facing various dangers and monstrous creatures.

*'''''Andy Weir - The Martian''''': An astronaut left on Mars has to survive until he's rescued. Decent inspiration if you want to make "NASA exploring distant worlds" as a campaign setting, but if you don't like loads of technical details this might not be the book for you.

*'''''H.G. Wells - The War of the Worlds and Time Machine''''': Absolute classics. Not knowing them is akin to being illiterate, while they can be used for all sorts of games.
*'''''Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep''''': A superb space opera that combines navigating the intrigues of godlike AIs with a classic scifi trope of uplifting a technologically primitive society. It also features an ingenious solution to the Fermi Paradox in the form of Zones of Thought that section off parts of the Milky Way in terms of what tech can exist at a given zone. It also gives Warhammer 40k a run for it's money in terms of how far into the future it is set.